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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Wira new generation! Proton Pesona

The launch of the new Proton Persona has been long-awaited and departing from its usual paranoia and super-secrecy (which even led to getting the police involved when spy pictures of the Gen2 appeared on the Net), many details of the new model were made public well before today – including price indications. This is the right way of marketing and it didn’t take a genius to figure that out because people will find out one way or another before a model hits the market and rather than keep them in the dark so they will hesitate – and many do with Proton – providing advance information about a product – even a single image – can make a difference to their decision. So it’s not surprising that at least 2,200 bookings have already been received as of last night and even more impressive, 350 customers can start driving their Persona today.

Earlier, Proton had hinted that the new model might not be called a ‘Gen2 Sedan’, as most people assumed, even though it is using the same platform and styling. Instead a new name – Persona – has been chosen and when you consider how significant the changes made are to turn the Gen2 into a sedan, it seems justified that the model should get its own name.

'Persona’ is not exactly new to Proton as it was used for the Wiras sold in UK and Australia and in some ways, its adoption for this new model is appropriate. Using Wira was felt to be unsuitable because that model, Proton’s second one, was based on the Mitsubishi Lancer and Proton wants to break away from that era so a new name is necessary even though the Persona can be considered the true WRM (Wira Replacement Model).